It’s four games into the season – and the Islanders earned points in the first three – but they still haven’t won yet.

And although this team is built more for the future than the present, they’d like that to change, including veteran goalie Martin Biron.

“The young team card, we can play that,” Biron said after he was in goal for their 2-1 loss this afternoon to the Kings at the Nassau Coliseum. “We’ve been playing that too many times. I’ve seen this team and the maturity and the experience the guys have. We just have to respond to the adversity; we’re gonna make mistakes, it’s how you respond to that. It doesn’t matter if you’re young or not young, you have to find a way to get that done when on ice.”

They did that at times in today’s defeat, playing fairly well in a scoreless first period, but slipping at times in the latter two.

A screened Biron gave up a power play goal in the second to Anze Kopitar, who snuck one in the left side and Drew Doughty added the second on a slap shot 5:31 into the third.

All the Isles could muster was a Matt Moulson goal off of a Kyle Okposo rebound with less than two minutes left in the match.

“We took too many shortcuts,” coach Scott Gordon said. “We got lazy.”

That was something the Isles had avoided in getting at least into overtime in their first three matches and know they need to stay away from if they hope to be competitive.

“We have to start reacting better,” Doug Weight said. “There’s gonna be a learning curve with a lot of aspects with a young team – we know that – but this is hockey.”

And not pretty hockey.

“There’s no smoke and mirrors with our team,” Weight said. “We know we have to play pretty perfect for 60 minutes and we haven’t reacted well, whether it’s the atmosphere in a building, or getting down or having a team flurry at us. We have to remedy it quick.”

Biron believes that the answer is changing the attitude.

“It’s almost like we played a little safe,” said Biron, who made 20 saves. “We played an OK game, but OK in this league is not gonna work. We’ve gotta play a little harder.”

They know how close they’ve been to a successful start.

“Four one-goal games, that’s the difference in the league,” Biron said. “We’re finding that out the hard way now.”

**

Weight returned from a groin injury and said he felt fine: “It got better as I went. I had no problems and I’m hoping I’m not worried about this all year.”